Baripada: The date of the municipal elections has not been announced. But the political climate in Mayurbhanj is hot. The controversy that erupted between district council chairperson and BJP leader Sujata Murmu and Rajya Sabha MP and BJD leader Mamata Mahant at the Disha meeting yesterday reached the highways today. Mayurbhanj Lok Sabha MP and BJP national secretary Biswaswar Tudu accused the BJP of politically distorting the issue within the assembly at a government function. The Zilla Parishad chairperson did not make any indecent remarks about former chief minister Biju Patnaik. “If the state government is posting photos of Biju Babu under the Prime Minister’s Housing Scheme alone, then the photos of the district’s son-in-law, such as Maharaja Sri Ramchandra Bhanjdeo, Bhanjbir’s Sunaram Soren and Pandit Raghunath Murmu, can also be included,” she said. “It simply came to our notice then that we were detained for three hours and that it was unconstitutional for three tribal women leaders and MPs and four legislators to be detained,” he said. BJP district president Kandra Soren, Baripada MLA Prakash Soren, Badshahi MLA Sanatan Bijuli, Udala MLA Bhaskar Madhei, Sarsakana MLA Budhan Murmu, former district president Krishnachandra Mohapatra were the keynote speakers. The BJP also took to the streets today in full swing. The BJP was opposed in the presence of hundreds of workers and all the leaders of the district. Hundreds of workers, led by Revenue Minister and District President Sudham Marandi, marched out of the party office in front of the district commissioner’s office. The effigies of MP and BJP national secretary Baisheshwar Tudu and Sujata Murmu were burnt there. Bijubabu shouted that the party would not accept any disrespect towards him. Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Mahant, State Agriculture Corporation Chairman Debashis Mohanty and State Secretary Debashis Marandi were present at the meeting.
